Last August, in the midst of NFL training camps, I visited the Minnesota Vikings and found myself camped out with a member of the team’s brain trust. Not far away, Sam Darnold and J.J. McCarthy were alternating in 11-on-11 drills when the conversation turned into an art versus science debate about when to turn a team over to a young quarterback.
“I’d love to pick [head coach] Andy Reid’s brain,” the Vikings official said. “I’d like to ask him how he kept that Ferrari in the garage so long.”
The “Ferrari” was Kansas City Chiefs rookie quarterback Patrick Mahomes, whom Reid impressively kept on the field for all but the final regular-season game of his rookie season — before eventually turning the starting job over to Mahomes the next season, following a trade that sent Alex Smith to Washington. In terms of redshirting a first-year quarterback and then hitting the ground running, it was a master stroke of sorts. The Chiefs went 11-4 in Smith’s 15 starts and Mahomes was victorious in the regular-season finale, then Kansas City went on to suffer a nail-biting 18-16 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the divisional round of the playoffs.
“I’m sure it helped that they had a good veteran quarterback and were winning games,” I said to the member of the Vikings’ brain trust. “Takes some pressure off to force it.”
He nodded.
“True.”
This wasn’t really a conversation about Mahomes and the Chiefs, of course. It was about the Vikings and McCarthy, who was selected with the 10th overall pick in the NFL Draft and was engaging in a camp battle with Darnold, who was entering his seventh season in the NFL after being the No. 3 overall draft pick in 2018. Darnold had yet to find solid footing in the league, but he’d had a resurrection of sorts as a backup in 2023 with the San Francisco 49ers. Not only had he beaten out Trey Lance for the No. 2 job behind Brock Purdy, he’d earned significant respect from 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan for adeptly picking up the head coach’s scheme while being a strong pillar of support for Purdy in the quarterback room.
When I arrived at Vikings camp in August, the team’s offseason drum beat about Darnold being a very capable veteran starter for the 2024 season had strengthened. Sources in the organization talked about “having the best of both worlds”, with the 27-year-old Darnold looking like he could turn his starting career in the right direction under head coach Kevin O’Connell — while allowing the 21-year-old McCarthy to patiently learn and develop.
“Sam could have a Geno [Smith] turnaround,” one team source said, referencing Smith’s career resurrection with the Seattle Seahawks in his ninth NFL season — long after the league had written him off as a starter.
I was skeptical. I’d spent time with the New York Jets and Carolina Panthers when Darnold was in those organizations. I’d interviewed him a few times. I’d spent time with his coaches and general managers. And the frustrations about his progressions and decision-making as a passer overlapped between those failed stops. And even when I saw him with the 49ers in 2023 and listened to Shanahan sing Darnold’s praises as a high-level backstop for Purdy, I had my doubts. The NFL percentages usually win out in these scenarios. And they tilt wildly in favor of failed first-round quarterbacks falling into the career backup realm. Especially once they’ve reached their fourth team in seven seasons.
But I also took note that Darnold looked very sharp and decisive in practice. He had an air about him that spoke to having gone through some things in his career, but also a confidence in an offensive scheme that was very familiar despite it being his first connection with O’Connell. I didn’t know if McCarthy was a future Ferrari, but I felt like there was a chance that Darnold could be a very comfortable sedan — getting the Vikings from A to B until the anticipated sports car could be pulled out of the garage.
Nearly five months later, I was wrong. Darnold has been more. And he has presented the Vikings with scenarios that I don’t think even they could have anticipated back in August: Choosing between the sports car that you know — but also comes with a significant price tag — or the sports car that you hope lives up to its billing, at a far lower price.
At least, that’s the thought I’d settled on when I started making calls about where the Vikings are at with this forthcoming decision. My assumption being that it would be an either/or scenario — choosing to stay the path toward embracing the upside of McCarthy and the flexibility of his rookie contract, or redraw the blueprint entirely, making Darnold the foundation with a long-term contract. My presumption was that it had to be one or the other. Either Darnold leaves in free agency or via a tag-and-trade scenario, or McCarthy gets dealt in an offseason when multiple teams will be thirsty for quarterback options beyond a weak 2025 draft class and Darnold-less free agency.
I began my calls with a high-ranking executive with a wealth of personal insight on O’Connell, Darnold and Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah. And when I challenged him to sort out the either/or scenario in Minnesota and to pick either Darnold or McCarthy, he responded with the answer I hadn’t entertained.
“Why not both?” he said. “It can be both and right now it probably should be both.”
We’ll get into some of the support beams in this argument in a bit. First, I’ll point out that the source wasn’t alone. Several executives with extensive team-building experience, including in the general manager seat, had similar responses. Though their approaches and ideologies to the decision varied from one to the next, there was a general consensus that threaded all of them together. And that was this: If the Vikings showcase in the postseason that a Super Bowl window has opened with Darnold at the helm, the conversation shifts to some version of “how can you not see where that goes beyond 2024”?
Clearly there is an acceptance that Minnesota can keep Darnold and McCarthy together beyond this season. More interestingly, I think that’s an expectation if the Vikings have a strong showing in the playoffs.
With that in mind, here are three wrinkles to consider as Minnesota nears an critical offseason decision …
What I have heard
Let’s begin with a baseline of what’s going on with Darnold and what I’ve heard about this season: O’Connell is extremely happy with how Darnold has come along and loves the makeup of the quarterback room this season. If Darnold were to depart, O’Connell believes in him enough to give him an endorsement in any system — not just the iteration of the Shanahan offense that has been tuned through Sean McVay and now O’Connell. With that in mind, the tact the Vikings take with Darnold is going to be whatever O’Connell wants it to be. If Minnesota makes a run in the playoffs and O’Connell wants Darnold to be locked in as the starter moving forward, I think that’s what will happen … alongside some other conversations that will need to take place about continuing to develop McCarthy in the meanwhile.
There certainly isn’t any inclination to move off of McCarthy at this point, so a future Darnold plan would really be about entrenching him as the No. 1 and making McCarthy his (hopefully) high-level developmental No. 2. If the Vikings make the NFC title game or Super Bowl with Darnold as a driving force, I’d be far more shocked to see him depart Minnesota than remain. Especially if there’s tangible postseason proof that the franchise’s Super Bowl window is open right here and right now with him as a starter. To let him go would be to roll the dice that a rookie who just missed his entire first season would be capable of filling those shoes in Year 2 — with no games under his belt. That’s a monumental gamble.
The crux behind ‘why not both?’
So what makes the keep-them-both scenario possible?
The Vikings have the salary-cap space to make it happen — including if the remedy is putting the franchise tag on Darnold for nearly $40 million in 2025. As one executive pointed out, there’s a chance that at least one team will offer Darnold a deal in free agency for $50 million in annual average value. If that’s his worth on the open market, a $40 million cost for a tag and McCarthy’s salary in 2025 of $4.96 million would place the Vikings at slightly less than $45 million in quarterback costs next season. If Darnold were to replicate his 2024 season in 2025 and the Vikings got another year to work with McCarthy, it’s a very justifiable expense, if not a bit of a bargain for the franchise. Of course, the downside is that it would eat into the money the Vikings could offer to other free agents and take cash out of their cap table for extensions. This isn’t great. But between that and letting go of a potential franchise quarterback in the midst of a Super Bowl window, you lean into the centerpiece and put the onus on the personnel department to make up the difference in deft free-agent moves and the best possible draft class.
As for the juggling of two quarterbacks, this wouldn’t be revolutionary. The Green Bay Packers did it with Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love … and before that, Brett Favre and Rodgers. And if you’re old enough to have been around during the career-beginnings of Drew Brees, you’d remember that he was a player former San Diego Chargers general manager A.J. Smith (may he rest in peace) wrote out of his team’s plans in 2004 — only to have Brees write himself back in. The Chargers drafted Eli Manning in 2004, only to have the Manning family and agent Tom Condon force a trade on draft night, which ultimately netted a very pissed-off Smith his replacement for Brees (Philip Rivers, who was the No. 4 overall pick in that draft) and a bushel of other picks. The plan was for Brees and Rivers to have a training camp battle for the starting job. But Rivers held out in camp and Brees took the starting job into the regular season and never gave it back, dialing up two seasons of Pro Bowl level play. Grudgingly, Smith had to keep Rivers on the bench for those first two years, until Brees suffered torn labrum in his throwing shoulder in the final game of the 2005 season. That opened the door for Rivers to take over the starting job in 2006 and for Brees to head to the New Orleans Saints in free agency.
The bottom line: Other teams have had a wealth of talent at quarterback and figured out a way to balance it until a solution presented itself. The Vikings can do the same.
The options are in the Vikings’ hands, but Darnold has some food for thought, too
To be clear, the Vikings have the ability to franchise tag Darnold with the intent of either playing him in 2025 or trading him this offseason. So they control the situation. And certainly both of those scenarios — keeping him for 2025 or a tag and trade — has to be considered, given the level Darnold is playing at. A tag and trade would take some free-agent money off the table for the Vikings until a deal could be consummated, but if they have a trade partner in mind, it’s worth playing that long game for some additional draft compensation.
The flip side of this is Darnold. While it seems less likely with each passing week, there is a possibility that his free agency isn’t quite what everyone assumes it will be. There is an inherent red flag with his success in Minnesota: He’s maximizing his ceiling with O’Connell as his head coach, Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison as his top two wideouts and T.J. Hockenson as his tight end. There aren’t a plethora of places he can go in free agency with that kind of surrounding talent, so any acquiring team has to take that into account. Unless you’re the 49ers and you’re taking a left turn off of Purdy, or the Los Angeles Rams and moving off Matthew Stafford, there simply aren’t many teams with that kind of juice to help Danold hit the ground running. And Darnold has to consider that, too. If he can land with Shanahan or McVay with the talent built into those teams and a scheme he’s already running in Minnesota, then it makes fantastic sense for him to move on. But if his option is the Las Vegas Raiders, who have Brock Bowers, Tre Tucker and an endless well of uncertainty … he’s been down that road before in past NFL stops and it did not go well.
There’s a chance Darnold doesn’t get offered any more than two years of guaranteed money in free agency. There’s a chance he doesn’t get offered that by any team other than one at the bottom of the barrel. And there’s a chance that making that kind of move ultimately ends up killing the jumpstart that he’s gotten with the Vikings. Remember, he’s still 27 years old. The next deal he signs should be with a team that he can envision leading for the next 10 years, not just the next four. He should be thinking in a window of his next three four-year contracts and then a retirement. And right now, it’s clear that Minnesota is his best shot at that kind of horizon. Given that this is the case, it’s not beyond comprehension that Darnold could go see what his market value is elsewhere, then revisit everything with the Vikings to see if there is space for a long-term deal that maximizes what both sides are looking for.
That’s a lot to be considered for the Vikings and Darnold. I think they’ll both go through those paces, especially if there’s a long playoff run ahead. This isn’t Washington and Kirk Cousins in 2017 or even Minnesota and Kirk Cousins in 2023. This is a player and a team who are both achieving at a level that looks real and sustainable.
That’s going to require complicated decision making this offseason. Once it happens, I think the result is leaning toward this entire thing — with both Darnold and McCarthy together — being run back again in 2025, if not beyond it.
Now on to the rest of the QB Room…
○ I hate to devote another note to Aaron Rodgers in this space — especially given that the New York Jets‘ season has been over for awhile — but he’s going to be a story this offseason, so the things happening in his orbit still matter. And in this case, one of his comments after Sunday’s 19-9 loss to the Los Angeles Rams did not go unnoticed in the upper reaches of the organization. Specifically, it was Rodgers’ comments about being “professional” in the remaining days of a lost season.
The statement:
“The reality of the situation is what it is, but your perspective is something you can change every single day, so what you’re focusing on is the most important thing now. It’s not to change the reality of the situation — being 4-11, out of the playoffs going into an unknown offseason — but you’ve got to figure what it means to be a professional and I think that’s an important part of building culture. The last two weeks we can really see who’s on board moving forward and who is ready to get out. It’s just part of the game. I’ve been on a couple teams where we’re out of it and it’s interesting to watch the practice habits, the preparation habits. Hopefully we’ll do the right thing and that means a lot because everybody’s watching and it’s a who-you-know business. There will be interesting conversations in the next couple weeks, but just focus on the relationships that we have with each other and try to finish this thing out like a pro.”
Aaron Rodgers on the Jets:
“You gotta figure out what it means to be a professional. That’s an important part of building culture. The last two weeks we can really see who’s on board moving forward and who is ready to get out.”
(via @snyjets) pic.twitter.com/UfmmooBd0f
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 23, 2024
In a vacuum, it’s a statement that resonates in the leadership of almost any NFL franchise. The Jets are anything but a vacuum at this stage, with layers of different emotions about Rodgers having set in. And some of them are most definitely driven by the firings of head coach Robert Saleh and general manager Joe Douglas during the course of the season. Both men still have confidants in the building who don’t think either should have been fired — especially given the way the season has played out in the wake (2-8 since Saleh’s departure and 1-3 since Douglas was ousted) — and some of them still bristle at Rodgers’ “nuanced” views on many things.
One of those was definitely Rodgers sounding off on what leadership looks like in the final weeks of the season. While it’s clear there’s agreement on watching to see who packs up early this year, it’s still not forgotten that Rodgers skipped the Jets’ full squad mandatory minicamp in the summer for a trip to Egypt — and then later explained his reasoning by framing the event as little more as a few more glorified OTA days. Elements of the coaching staff and front office did not agree with that assessment, nor the message it sent to the rest of the team. And now that Rodgers is talking about being a professional and showing up when nothing is on the line in terms of the postseason, there’s a prickly underbelly question of, “What about in minicamp when everyone shows up but the most important player on the team … when everything is still on the line?” Especially, to borrow from Rodgers’ own words, when it comes to “building culture.”
Rodgers’ critics inside the Jets won’t say it publicly because they can’t — and they’re also leery of his unchecked pulpit on “The Pat McAfee Show” — but some definitely feel there is hypocrisy to talking about showing up and building culture when you’ve already showcased a habit of choosing not to do it based on your own schedule and what you see as important. That’s the Rodgers distortion field: what he views as important, what everyone else views as important … and what kind of gerrymandering he commits when the two don’t align in his mind. (See: his views on created distractions versus his created distractions.)
I don’t know what this means for Rodgers and the Jets in 2025. But there is some real fatigue here, and Rodgers isn’t the only one feeling it.
○ Based on conversations I had with members of the Pittsburgh Steelers‘ brain trust while spending time with the team in training camp, I think Russell Wilson is at an extremely critical juncture of his season. The goal in finding a long-term starter for the Steelers, or even a bridge starter to cover beyond the 2025 season, was to lean into a leader who could move the offense, score points and showcase ball security in critical games and moments. Wilson had some early success, but three straight wide-margin losses to playoff-bound teams — all showcasing questionable decisions and a solid disparity in QB play — has cooled the landscape in Pittsburgh.
Barring a collapse against the Cincinnati Bengals in the season finale and then a clunker in the playoffs, I still think Pittsburgh will pursue a contract with Wilson in the offseason. But the reality has sunk in that building a Super Bowl window around Wilson is going to require heavy lifting this offseason and offer only a short time to make it all come together. With that in mind, I think the initial thrust of an offer would be something short, possibly three years, that offers the Steelers some relative escapability after Year 1. This can still change with the next few games, of course. Especially with the thin quarterback market this offseason. But the approach to Wilson’s offseason deal is getting more conservative by the week.
○ There will be some interesting names — and very helpful quarterback weapons — that surface in trade buzz this offseason at the wide receiver position. Among them will be three aging stars in the Miami Dolphins’ Tyreek Hill, Los Angeles Rams’ Cooper Kupp and San Francisco 49ers’ Deebo Samuel. But keep one potential monster in mind: 2022 offensive rookie of the year Garrett Wilson, who is on the cusp of his third straight 1,000-yard season with the New York Jets but once again is facing an offseason of questions at the quarterback spot.
It’s been a frustrating experience for Wilson, dealing with chaos on offense his first two seasons, then the implosion this year despite Aaron Rodgers playing all season. Depending on how some things shake out after the season with the coaching staff, front office and roster, I wouldn’t be surprised if Wilson’s camp pursues a trade or the next Jets regime shops him to see what his value is on the trade market.
○ While I don’t think this is the offseason any significant move happens, I think we can begin another “pre-watch” this offseason for a move with Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray. The results with Murray in 2024 have been inconsistent and there’s at least some concern over his rapport with rookie Marvin Harrison Jr. and the inability to turn on the scoring production of talented tight end Trey McBride — who has 92 catches for 958 yards but zero touchdown receptions. Murray is 1-4 in his past five starts with seven turnovers and five total touchdowns, reigniting a career trend of late-season plummeting when it matters most. The regime that took over the Cardinals in 2023 has been patient with Murray, but I expect there will be some pressure put on him this offseason, with the addition of a veteran backup with some starting capabilities. All with an eye toward a potential reboot at quarterback after the 2025 offseason if he can’t kick it into gear next season.